Lexmark Impact S305 and Linux

I needed a new printer for home … I do not do professional things, and having the desk already filled, my only requirement was that it be wireless so that I can put it somewhere where I have more space.

I found the Lexmark Impact S305 as the first price for wireless printer at the mall. It was 49 euros and included a scanner, SD reader, and direct printing of photos. Although there have been some negative opinions about the Lexmark support to Linux, I decided to buy it.

As I unboxed it, there was the printer, 1 CD for installing, 1 CD for the guarantee, a trouble-shooting guide, and a worksheet for quick setup. My first feeling was very positive. The printer takes up the right amount of space, and at first I was very pleased. However, I recommend these videos to see the exact contents and get an idea for yourself:

and part two

For the installation, I connected my notebook via USB, booted the partition with Windows XP, inserted the CD, and followed step-by-step instructions. It was really trivial and took 15 minutes to have the printer installed and configured with wireless (WEP and WPA2 support).

At the end of the installation, I got a Windows program to do a scan, as well as an OCR program; I have yet to test them (I usually do not use that partition).

At this point, I switched on the Linux desktop with Xubuntu 10.4 and downloaded the official drivers. At this moment, the official version is: lexmark-inkjet-09-driver-1.5-1.i386.deb.sh.tar.gz (good for the 32-bit systems), you can find it on the official site by searching “lexmark driver” and pointing to the correct model. Once the file is unzipped, you can launch the executable. This starts a dialog graphics box, which installs an additional Java environment and then does a scan of the network devices (make sure the printer is not in stand-by, with wireless signal green). If everything works properly, you’ll see your printer with his Mac and the label that you gave. Select it and you’ve basically finished the installation.

The printer is now registered on CUPS and is easily used by all programs (tested with Firefox, Gimp and acroread).

If you have a 64-bit system, you’ll have some more problems. I found some useful information about them on the ubuntu support forums–particularly this post, which explains how to convert the script provided for 32-bit systems compatible with those in a LPIA:

Ok, so I have contacted Lexmark and they have provided the following solution:

In X23xx and X26xx models the only way to let the user successfully install driver on so called NETBOOKs is to do the following:

1) You need these two scripts, and must copy these two scripts right beside where the “lexmark-inkjet.deb.sh ” installer is located.(See attached file: extracter.sh) (See attached file: deb2lpia.sh)

2) open terminal and go to the location of the Lexmark installer, and do:

in the terminal do —> sh ./extracter.sh lexmark-inkjet-09-driver-1.0-1.i386.deb.sh

result, this file gets created —> lexmark-inkjet-09-driver-1.0-1.i386.deb

3) Rename lexmark-inkjet-09-driver-1.0-1.i386.deb to installer_i386.deb

by issuing the following command at the terminal —> mv lexmark-inkjet-09-driver-1.0-1.i386.deb installer_i386.deb

4) please then do —> sh ./deb2lpia.sh installer_i386.deb

result is this file gets created installer_lpia.deb

5) Finally, at last, do —> dpkg -i installer_lpia.deb

That’s it. The driver should be successfully installed and got registered into the synaptics record database ( which means, you can open synaptics UI, and can find our driver in the group called “notfree “).

I’m going to test this out shortly (but expect it to work) and will post to confirm if it worked.

The next post in the thread provides the following script in hand to convert 64-bit systems, the steps are exactly the same as already described. Use only the correct script (find attached all-in-one tar) s305_linux.tar.

At this point, I tried to see if sane (Scanner Access Now Easy) recognized the scanner, but there was nothing to be done. I’ve done some tests, but there is nothing to be done, so at the moment you cannot scan from linux.

Together with the driver for CUPS, you can install a small program called “Lexmark Printer Toolbox,” by which you can do simple things like install new cartridges, check ink levels, head alignment, and cleaning.

Finally, direct your attention to the IP address assigned to the printer. There is a web page there (use the browser) NOT protected by default, so just put a password. There are not great options, but you should still not risk it (default user is admin).

In conclusion, you have the low price, good print quality for this price range, wireless, and the ability to print from SD. I can recommend this printer for home use. On the other hand, you have to use windows for the scan (at least for now), the LCD screen is very poor (about 20 characters on one line), and there are no refill cartridges because the printer uses a new technology … so you must use the official ones (In the same store where I bought the printer, I found them at 9 euros each for the 3 RGB color cartridges and 15 for the black).

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